Cafferata: Nevada Airlines started in 1929

In April 1929, Lockheed Aircraft officials Ray Boggs and Ben Hunter from Los Angeles organized Nevada Airlines. The men hired well-known racing pilot Roscoe Turner to manage the Reno operations. And, they appointed Reno directors, Ben Mansfield, attorney John Donovan and District Court Judge George Bartlett to show they had local support for their company.

They bought four Vega monoplanes from Lockheed that could carry up to four passengers at a time. The planes were powered by Whitney Wasp engines, known for their speed. Because of the powerful engine, Turner claimed the airline was the fastest in the world.

The men thought they could capitalize on Nevada’s easy marriage and divorce laws by flying people eager to get to Nevada from Los Angeles. The owners named their first plane the “Alimony Special,” or depending on the circumstances for the trip, they sometimes called it the “Matrimonial Express.”

The first flight from Los Angeles to Reno was on May 15, 1929. The plane averaged 135 mph. The trip featured a stop in Bishop and then on to Reno in less than four hours, an attractive alternative to driving 22 hours to Reno.

The next week, when the plane arrived in Reno, Judge Bartlett climbed a ladder and christened the plane with a bottle of near-beer, champagne, ginger ale or something else. (Newspaper reports of the event were vague because Prohibition was in effect.)

The company advertised the airline as swift, safe and scenic with daily departures, except on Sundays. The plane departed from Reno’s Hubbard Field at 9 a.m., stopped in Bishop at 10:30 a.m. and left at 10:45 a.m., and landed in Los Angeles at 12:30 pm. On the return trip, the plane left and landed at each location on the same schedule.

Passengers paid $50 to fly between Reno and Los Angeles, while from Reno to Bishop, the fare was $30. For bargain hunters, a roundtrip from Reno to Los Angeles was only $75 for four passengers. On July 12, 1929, the airline added service between Reno and Las Vegas, where the plane landed on a dirt runway at Peter “Pop” Simon’s airport.

The airline only operated for eight months, and 142 couples took advantage of the quick trip to tie or sever the knot. In addition, a few famous actors and actresses flew to Reno on the airline, Loretta Young, Joan Bennett, Clark Gable and Fred MacMurray.

When the stock market crashed in October 1929, the airline’s success ended. The company announced it was suspending flights between Los Angeles and Reno because of the winter storms, but the lack of paying customers actually ended the airline’s operations. Meanwhile, pilot Roscoe Turner continued to have a successful flying career. In 1933, he won the Bendix Trophy when he flew from New York to Los Angeles in under 12 hours, and in 1934, he won the 10 mile race around a “track” to win the Thompson Trophy. This event was similar to the National Air Races.